Gathers No Moss
by Scribbler
Summary: Cloud between the fall of Radiant Garden and the beginning of KHI. He keeps trying to hold onto who he really is, but every time he meets the silver-haired demon a little more of his memory erodes away. Who is Cloud Strife really?


**Disclaimer****: **Depressingly not mine.

**A/N****: **Written for Challenge #226 'survivor' on KH Drabble. Kudos if you spot the side-flings to FFVII and FFVIII, no worries if you don't.

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_**Gathers No Moss**_

(c) Scribbler, May 2010.

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Cloud wasn't sure how he got to this point. He didn't understand the smell of blood, the unfamiliar weight in his hands, or the different weight in his _chest_. He felt cold and sick and his head was fuggy, like he was waking from a deep sleep.

Then everything came back in a torrent of images that blistered into his mind with the strength and force of an experiment in Science Academy. The students often had things blow up. It came from thinking such big thoughts their head had no room left for common sense – like _Don't light a match around unknown gases _and _Wear protective clothing while handling unknown metaphysical substances that might rip your heart out_. Everyone was so used to the odd explosion they didn't react anymore, except to fetch a mop if they were on cleaning detail. Always the lowest jobs to the cadets.

Cloud remembered. He was a cadet. Once.

He remembered other things, too.

Screaming voices and running footsteps. Ruined cages and oozing darkness. Bodies crushed underfoot and the wide, terrified eyes of those who trampled them to get away. Creeping shadows and the bitter-bright taste of magic. Names of the fallen marched through his mind: Cadet Leonhart, Cadet Lockhart, Cadet Biggs, Cadet Wedge, Cadet... Jessie something-or-other. Her surname eluded him. All he could remember of her now was the sound of her skull breaking, like someone biting into an apple. The cadets, healers and their superiors had been trying to help people get away safely, but the survivors had just knocked them aside to escape the Heartless.

Cloud didn't know much of what happened after that. Reality blurred for him – twice; then and now. He blinked. No, he had to hold onto the present!

Before him the moon scrawled calligraphy on the water's surface. Waves lapped his feet. He was on a beach? Bare feet. Torn clothing. Post-battle again. Not that he remembered the battle itself. Where was he? He recognised nothing. Nothing familiar to anchor him to _now_. Where was the Garden? He looked down, saw the sword and recalled a flash of silver. His head hurt. He ground the bottom of his hand against his eye-socket, trying to remember something concrete.

"_Hey, Cloud!"_ called a voice from his memory. Dazzling smile. Dark hair. Tifa! _"C'mon, slowpoke. We get one day's vacation and you wanna waste it on chocobos?" _Her image quivered and faded. No! He had to hold onto –

Too late. His vision swirled. Darkness, phosphorescent flashes of reality, of battles, always battles, and then...

Had he moved in time or just place this time? How long since his last fade-out? His feet were shod and he was standing in a desert. A familiar sense of purpose whickered through his mind, even as other things slipped away. Silver hair. Masamune. Met lately. He had to... to...

He was losing pieces of himself, forgetting who he was each time he faded in and out. How long had it been now since Radiant Garden? How many years? How many worlds?

"_Right and wrong aren't what separate us from our enemies,"_ said a voice from his past. Always so serious and practical._ "It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us."_

Wrong, Squall. Leon. Whatever. Didn't matter. Dead, probably. All dead. Cloud was the only survivor. Right? The only one who'd cannoned off the drawbridge under the onslaught, knocked into a tear in reality that vomited him up on some distant world, torn in half, destined to forever chase the silver-haired demon he somehow knew would return the pieces he'd lost, if only he could catch him.

Cloud threw back his head and howled the bitterness of one who refused to die until he was ready.

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Fin.

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End file.
